Wednesday, January 31, 2007

Can We Change That?

I worked in animated TV commercials for a lot of years. The good thing about commercials was that they had relatively high budgets (at least compared to TV series) and there was a variety of designs and technical challenges.

Eventually, though, I reached a limit. One of the main reasons was dealing with people from advertising agencies and their clients. Now, you can experience the wonders of ad agency folks without having to work nights and weekends to give them what they want. Check out this website, which claims to be verbatim comments. Based on my experience, I'd say that was an accurate statement.

I did an internship in an advertising company. The clients we had were horrible. The animators would have finished their clean up and one they'd speak up saying, "Could we get rid of that stripe in that chacracter's pants?" making the animators do long hours and extra nights they didn't need to spend on the studio.

I know nothing about animation except a little bit about how to enjoy it when I watch it. A few years ago I had the "privilege" of working on a few live action commercials as a production assistant.

I was fascinated by the "clients" and I found myself feeling sorry for them. These people had taken enormous risks to create a product. Back at their company they control every aspect of the work and they have earned that control because they know absolutely everything about what goes on. Of course, they know absolutely nothing about how commercials are made - and yet their company's survival hung on the mysterious process happening before their eyes. They were taking enormous risks and yet had no knowledge of the the process and no ability to contribute to its success.

Inevitably, they hired producers to represent their interest but, of course, these producers keep them at a remove. Their insights, intelligence, and hard earned authority had evaporated and everything they said sounded stupid.

They (sometimes) asked good questions. But, regardless, no matter what happened it was too late. The commercial would be made and interpreted according to the direction of other people.

So how to answer stupid questions? How to give a useful answer? I don't know.

(Now, when the "client" is not an owner of the company and is not personally responsible for the manufacture of the product but a producer or agency hired to make the commercial, well.... I wonder if it's okay to "accidentally" spill ink on them?)

About Me

I've worked as an animator, writer, producer and director in TV animation for 29 years. I created the cgi series Monster By Mistake.
I hold a Masters degree from York University in Cinema and Media Studies and am currently teaching animation at Sheridan College.
I can be contacted at mark(dot)mayerson(at)sheridanc(dot)on(dot)ca.